


Inhumanities

by FireBatVillain



Category: Bleach, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Fate/stay night (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Holy Grail War (Fate), Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Crest Worms, Dark, Fate characters in a Bleach setting, Gen, Good Matou Shinji, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Low-key siscon vibes, Matou Shinji gets Magic Circuits, Matou Zouken is a monster, Parasites, Shinji and Shirou are actually friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29398671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireBatVillain/pseuds/FireBatVillain
Summary: Shinji was born into a world of heroes and monsters, a world in which the Exorcists did battle against the Hollows. He was born into a family of heroes, who for generations had stood fast against the darkness.He was also born into a family of monsters, born with no natural talent for the manipulation of Spirit Energy.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. Crest Worms

The boy’s name was Shinji. He was almost seven years old, he was heir to the Matou family, and he was a failure.

Shinji knew this when Dad began to drink out of those special bottles every night. He knew this when Dad sheepishly and futilely tried to hide the truth from him. He knew it when Gramps frowned at him and Mom went away one day and never came back. Uncle Kariya looked at him with sad eyes, and Shinji knew it was all his fault. 

Shinji wasn’t good enough. Not fast enough, not strong enough, not smart enough. He knew this from what they would say in their family meetings. The family meetings weren't for kids, but Shinji wanted to know what they were saying, and he asked Gramps. 

Gramps made him sit in on the meetings. 

“Even a failure of an heir might have some value,” Gramps said, and he felt proud. 

Then, Gramps began to tutor him. Shinji didn’t always remember what happened during the tutoring sessions. He didn’t want to.

In time, Shinji began to piece together the secrets of the Matou, and what made his family special. Beyond this world, and coexistent with it, is the Spirit Realm. The Matou are one of the few lineages of humans who possess the ability to gaze into the Spirit Realm and interact with it. 

In the old days, when humanity was weaker, chosen heroes would protect humanity from the restless spirits, which are sometimes called Hollows. Those heroes were able to see or sense spiritual beings, including Hollows, from a young age. With time, training, and exposure, even a normal person would be able to do this. 

Shinji knew that the Matou were once a powerful family with many heroes. Gramps was even one of them! Gramps was in charge of protecting the family’s special abilities and familiars, including the Spirit Worms. Gramps knew loads of champions! Now, with just 4 living members, the Matou had become a shadow of what they once were. And Shinji knew he was not a hero. He couldn’t see ghosts with an innate talent. He was a failure.

After his summer abroad, Shinji came back and Uncle Kariya was gone. When he asked Dad where Uncle Kariya was, Dad got angry again, angrier than he ever was before. 

Shinji still hasn’t gotten good enough at stopping himself from crying, but he’s getting better. Dad kept telling him to stop crying, and Shinji didn’t want to be a bad boy. Gramps seemed concerned when Shinji shared how much he had improved at stopping himself from crying. Shinji knew it would be a bad idea to get Gramps angry, so he stopped talking about it after that.

Gramps and Dad shouted at each other more after that. Dad spent more and more of his time drinking, locked up in his study. He was stinky a lot, which was gross. He stopped playing catch with Shinji too. Shinji missed Dad. 

Gramps was around less and less, and school was starting. Shinji knew that as a big boy, he had to try harder in school. 

Shinji tried many activities at school, but his favorite was archery. He wasn’t bad at kendo, either, but that wasn’t his favorite. He made friends and had a good time, excelling in each subject.

What bothered him most was the dreams.

The dreams came to him more and more often. Dreams of another realm, of another future, or another way he could have been. Ideas from the void, from beyond the void, without shape or meaning or rhyme or reason. A man speaking words he couldn’t understand, human bodies morphing into twisted shapes, scattering into ash and reforming from something he could barely see.

Shinji heard the whispers in his ear, but as he strained to hear them, he found them slipping away, leaving only the cadence and rhyme behind, fading into nonsense. When he opened his mouth to ask, ash and worms flowed into it, and the man in front of him dissolved, leaving only bugs and dust and crawling all over him, lost and trapped, unable to awake with darkness everywhere, screaming and drowning in ash and worms crawling into his mouth, clawing to try to tear them away, but it was all so _wrong_.

Shinji would wake up drenched in sweat, and it would always take him a few minutes to realize that it was just a nightmare, a horrible nightmare, not real.

What was real, very real, was his new adoptive sister. Her name was Sakura, and she was his little sister. Shinji knew that an older brother should look out for a little sister, but Gramps was tutoring her now, and Shinji felt, maybe, that that was wrong. Sakura was quiet and empty and she would look right through him, and Shinji wanted to hate her. Shinji wanted to hate her because she had that power: the power of heroes. She was everything he wasn’t, everything he never could be. What Shinji could learn only with great difficulty, she was born to. Sakura was destined for greatness, and Shinji was destined for nothing. 

At least she didn’t take Gramps away all the time. Every night, for a couple hours, Gramps had time for Shinji. It was awful and terrible, and Shinji almost regretted asking for it. But he knew that if he ever wanted to be a hero, he needed to do this, so it was his own fault. All he wanted was chance to gain the power of heroes, a chance to reach his destiny, a chance to never be helpless again. 

Shinji knew what he had to do: accept the familiars, master the worms, push through the pain, learn the lessons, and control the changes in his body. 

This was his birthright, whether he wanted it or not. Gramps said the worms would grow into him and be his Spirit Energy, so Shinji had to eat enough to feed the worms, too. _Eat more food, and let the worms grow strong. Become a big boy and eat even if it hurts during training, feed the gnawing hunger. If it itches or tickles, that’s okay: the worms are just hungry._

Sometimes, it hurt.

At night, when nobody is paying attention, Shinji tried to do what Gramps does, and control the worms in his body. He visualized the flows of spiritual energy, the lattices of the control system, the expulsion pulses that could force the familiars to react. Every night, Shinji could feel himself growing closer to issuing true commands to the creatures within him, gaining true control. He had to get stronger. Stronger than Dad. Stronger than Uncle Kariya. Stronger than…

One night, it finally happened. As Shinji lay on his quilted bed, a smaller familiar in his chest reacted to one of the coded pulses of Spirit Energy he fired. He did it! Finally! He almost jumped out of his bed and shouted in excitement, before he remembered where he was. He calmed down and tried the same pulse of Spirit Energy he did last time—and the familiar twitched again. Carefully, he built off of that pulse, as he saw Gramps doing, leading with the key and following with more complex shapes. 

While Gramps knew every shaped pulse of Spiritual Energy a familiar might accept, Shinji didn’t—so his shapes were random, tentative steps to test how the familiar would react. He got it to twist left, then right, then—ouch! A twinge of pain shot through Shinji’s chest, and when he touched his chest, his hand came away damp with a few spots of blood. 

_Better to take things more slowly then,_ thought Shinji. He needed to be careful, and more gentle when pushing his Spirit Energy into the one familiar in his body he could control. He couldn’t afford to hurt himself, not when he was so close.

And, with time, Shinji mastered a familiar in secret.


	2. Willpower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji is 10, and nothing seems quite right.

Shinji was almost 10 when his lessons and Sakura’s began to overlap. After his 10th birthday, he would see Sakura several times per month down in _that place._

Some nights, when, he and Sakura were left in _that place_ together, he could see the familiars that Sakura used were different from his, somehow. It made sense to Shinji: Sakura was a hero by birth, with Spiritual Energy as part of her nature. She wouldn’t need to trade flesh for Spirit Energy like he did. Shinji envied her. Everything he had to give up, Sakura didn’t. 

Still, things looked pretty bad for her over there. Shinji did not always understand what was going on, but he knew enough to worry. He _chose_ this life, but Sakura didn’t. She was adopted. And on top of that… Shinji knew he was her big brother, and a big brother should protect this little sister. That’s what big brothers do. And even if this was their secret training, something about this was wrong, something about these nights down alone in _that place_ was bad, and not just because of the pain.

Each night that their sessions in _that place_ overlapped, Shinji would try to help her. He would try to teach her, show her how to accept the worms like he had. It helped, a little, but not enough. Something was different about Sakura’s Crest Worms, Shinji was sure of it. They spoke the same language as his familiars—in shape, color, smell, and sound—and he’d memorized enough to understand that. But the words they said? They were different, different entirely.

They scared Shinji. And this night, they were ravenous. This night, Sakura seemed more and more restless. She tossed and turned, writhing in pain, banging her small body against the slick stones of that place. 

Shinji had to do something.

He pushed one hand forward, reaching for his sister.

 _I need to do something_ , he thought, as he pulled himself up onto his knees.

Shinji crawled, through and over the ravenous worms, knowing he had to act.

The stone floor was cold, and getting colder. Every point of contact with it felt like it drained the heat right out of him.

“Sakura,” he said. His throat was full of nails. Speaking during training was always a bad idea. Gramps always told Shinji he should be silent and accept the Crest Worms.

“Hang on,” he whispered, his body slowed by the worms, which were now reaching up to pull him to the floor.

They slithered around him, grabbing him by the arms and legs, firmly and painfully. He was weighed down, the worms all over him flexing and twisting against Shinji’s body as he pushed toward her. Each time he tried to move a limb, the worms twisted tighter, both around him and within him. They didn't want him to do it, he knew. It was long into the night, and the tremors were already starting. The pain and itchiness that would come as the worms flowed into him were too distracting, too strong for him to think through.

Shinji tried to surge forward toward his sister, but made no progress, as the floor seemed to slip out from under him.

He slumped back down against the stones, feeling his insides tickling and his legs twitching. It would be easier to stop, he knew, and focus on letting the worms inside him. For a moment, he closed his eyes, and tried to forget the mental image of his sister in pain.

Somehow, no matter how hard he tried, that memory wouldn't go away.

Shinji tried to rise to his knees, and the worms twisted around him again.

 _A big brother should protect his little sister,_ he thought, and he pushed forward, trying to reach Sakura again.

Then, the worms wiggled inside him, pain lanced through his body, and all was darkness.

* * *

  
It was a spring afternoon, and the world was warming again. Fuyuki City was emerging from a pretty cold winter, but it did so tentatively and slowly. Shinji was just glad not to have to deal with snow on the sidewalk. The trees were starting to show signs of life again, so perhaps his walk would be a bit nicer in the coming weeks.

Shinji approached the shortcut he usually took to avoid traffic, and stepped around the corner to see a frustrating scene in the alley. His friend, Shirou, had gotten into trouble yet again. 

Shirou was a real pain to have as a friend. He was a guy with no sense of self-preservation, too nice and too helpful to everyone. Shinji wasn’t entirely sure how they’d become friends, because Shirou was always letting people walk all over him—very aggravating!

In this case, it looked like Shirou was picking a fight. Shirou stood in front of his classmate, the beefy Murakami. Shirou’s hands were outstretched, blocking the larger boy’s passage down the alley. For some reason, Shirou was dressed in a simple grey shirt and dark pants, rather than the usual, muted school uniform. Murakami was already clenching his fists. Murakami had a thick chin and nose that would have made the boy the target of cruel jokes if he didn't have a thicker set of fists, and a propensity to use them.

Needless to say, Shirou was up to his neck in it.

“I won’t let you hurt him!” said Shirou. “You should leave him alone!”  
  
Behind Shirou was Takahashi, from Class B. Takahashi’s uniform was scuffed, and marked with dust and dirt, clearly the result of having taken a tumble. He was hurriedly collecting the scattered contents of his bookbag, shooting terrified glances up at Murakami and Shirou.

It all clicked right away in Shinji’s mind. Shirou had likely come across Murakami bullying Takahashi, and felt the need to intervene for some reason. It was pathetic, but very much in character for Shirou, who could never leave well enough alone.

Normally, Shinji would let his friend handle the predictable consequences of his pathetic desire to help people. With a beating on the line, though, Shinji couldn’t bring himself to turn around and walk away. He couldn’t leave Shirou to get beat up to defend _Takahashi_ of all people. Still, this wouldn’t be an easy fight. Better to deal with it the simple way. Shinji put on his #3 most menacing grin, the kind he used when he needed a kid’s lunch money, and swaggered into the alley.

“Hey, hands off the merch, Murakami,” said Shinji, drawing the larger boy’s attention. “After all, that guy pays me usually, doesn’t he?”

Realizing that his bully was distracted, Takahashi quietly began to back away, and soon reached the other mouth of the alley.

“What?” said Murakami. “Oh, boy… I don’t want to step on any toes, but usually he’s paying me. You may have gotten Takahashi’s cash this week, but usually he gives _me_ the cash, see?”

Shinji kept pouring on the wattage with his #3 grin. “Well, maybe we can work something out here,” he said. “See, I don’t live too far from him, so it’s more convenient for me—”

Finally understanding what Shinji was saying, Shirou cut in. “What are you talking about, Shinji? You’ve never extorted anyone in your life!”

Murakami looked from Shirou to Shinji, realization slowly dawning over his stupid face. “What are you trying to pull here, Matou? If you’re not taking money from this guy—”

He gestured over to where Takahashi was a moment ago, but now, Takahashi was long gone.

Murakami looked around. “Shit, where’d he go?!”

After a moment of looking confused, he turned back to Shinji, his face dark with fury. After a moment, he seemed to push down his anger, and spoke, his voice hoarse with emotion. Shinji took a moment to appreciate just how big and angry Murakami looked. How could a 10-year-old be so large?

“You… you just cost me 2,000 yen. You’re a pretty cool guy, Matou, but coming in here and lying like that… and that kid getting away… you must really think you’re something, don’t you? Well, I’ll give you a chance. Give me those 2,000 yen, and we can walk away even. You and this kid go one way, and I’ll go another. Fair and square. Otherwise...”

Murakami cracked his knuckles. 


End file.
